Drew Hill (u/the_drew)

Posts

Rant: I dropped $200 on a fancy tile leveling system and wish I just used spacers

Bought a Spin Doctor kit after watching all those YouTube guys make perfect floors, but the clips kept snapping and the wedges were impossible to pull out without chipping tiles. Took me three times longer than using plain 1/8 inch spacers and the floor looks the same. Has anyone else wasted money on one of these systems?

0 comments

c/bread-baking-basics•

the_drew•2d ago

My $35 proofing basket was a total waste of money

I bought a cheap banneton off Amazon a few months ago thinking I was saving cash. The thing kept leaving fabric patterns stuck to my dough and never gave me that nice flour ring. After three tries I finally gave up and got a proper one for $8 more from a local kitchen shop. Has anyone else had bad luck with the cheap plastic lined proofing baskets?

2 comments

c/diy-home-projects•

the_drew•5d ago

Caught my neighbor's contractor cutting corners on vapor barrier - be careful out there

I was helping my neighbor unload some stuff last week and saw his foundation crew laying down vapor barrier with a ton of overlap and no seam tape. The foreman literally said "it's just a moisture wrap, nobody tapes it unless the inspector shows up lol." Dude that's your entire crawlspace floor, you're asking for mold in 2 years if water wicks through. Has anyone else caught contractors skipping simple stuff like this on a new build?

2 comments

c/freelance-survival•

the_drew•6d ago

Appreciation post for my old accountant after wasting $400 on a bookkeeping app

I finally caved and paid $400 for a bookkeeping app that promised to automate all my freelance invoices and taxes. It was supposed to save me time, but instead I spent 3 weeks trying to match my receipts to categories that made no sense for a one-person operation. Then the app glitched and I lost an entire month of expense tracking. Talked to my friend who runs a small design firm and she said she just uses a spreadsheet her old accountant taught her. She even sent me a template. I realized I wasted that money on something that overcomplicated simple stuff. Has anyone else dropped cash on a tool that actually made your freelance life harder instead of easier?

2 comments

c/board-game-geeks•

the_drew•6d ago

Got told my dungeon tiles looked like wet cardboard, fixed my wash technique

Some guy at a convention in Denver looked at my hand-painted tiles and said they just looked like I'd dipped them in brown water. He was right, I was using way too much water in my wash and not letting layers dry. I cut my wash ratio to 1:8 paint to water and now the detail actually pops. Has anyone else had a random stranger give them a tip that actually fixed a problem?

2 comments

c/archaeology-discoveries•

the_drew•13d ago

Hit 500 arrowheads in my personal collection last week and it got me thinking

I've been surface hunting in Tennessee fields for about 4 years now and counting them up I'm at 512 pieces total. Some folks say you should only keep perfect points and toss the broken ones, but every chip and tip tells a story about how people lived. Do you think it matters if an artifact is whole or broken when it comes to its value for understanding the past?

2 comments

c/foundry-workers•

the_drew•14d ago

Just found out our old cupola furnace from the 70s used 40% more coke than a modern one

I was going through some old plant records in the office, looking for a shipping date, and I found a stack of fuel logs from 1978. I started comparing the coke usage per ton of iron from back then to our numbers now. The old cupola we replaced five years ago was burning through almost 2,000 pounds of coke for a 5-ton melt. Our current induction setup uses the power equivalent of about 1,200 pounds for the same job. I knew it was less efficient, but seeing the actual numbers written down in that old ledger really hit me. Some guy was shoveling all that extra coke every single day for years. Makes you think about all the heat and money just going up the stack. Has anyone else dug up old records that showed how much the tech has really changed?

2 comments

c/binge-worthy-shows•

the_drew•15d ago

Decided to finally watch 'The Wire' instead of rewatching 'The Office' for the 5th time

I finished all 5 seasons in like 3 weeks and now I keep noticing the same themes everywhere I look, it's wild. Anyone else have a show that just rewired your brain like that?

2 comments

c/avionics-technicians•

the_drew•16d ago

Shoutout to the old 430W GPS unit that gave up the ghost on a King Air last Tuesday

It just dropped all signal over Kansas, had to pull the whole LRU and swap it with a spare from the hangar. Anyone have a good source for those legacy WAAS upgrade kits now?

2 comments

c/foundry-workers•

the_drew•18d ago

Overheard a new guy on the floor say 'it's just a casting' and it got under my skin

We were cleaning up after a pour for a custom gear housing, and he said that while wiping down the flask. It's not 'just a casting' to the guy who designed it or the plant that needs it to run. I had to stop and explain how a single bubble or cold shut could scrap a $500 part. That attitude is how small mistakes turn into big problems. How do you guys get new hires to really care about the work?

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Recent Comments

20h ago

The day I learned drywall isn't a snack for my dog

And yeah, @perez.thea is spot on about locking totes - my buddy actually had his husky chew through the corner of a plastic bucket to get at some leftover mortar mix. I switched to those heavy duty totes too, but I also started keeping a spray bottle of bitter apple nearby as a backup (that stuff tastes awful, trust me). Another thing nobody brings up: your dog might not just eat the drywall compound, they might lick the dust off your tools while you're mid-project. Caught my pup doing that with a drywall knife once.

1d ago

A smart relay vs standard contactors on a 6-stop MOD job

Baker.simon has a point but I've been zapped by contactor coils way more times than I've had a smart relay fry on me. On a 6-stop job the cost savings in labor alone makes it worth carrying a spare power supply in the truck. Still won't stop me from reaching for my meter with my tongue halfway out though.

2d ago

My biggest career regret is ignoring networking when I started out

Man, same here! I started forcing myself to say yes to one coffee chat a month and it opened way more doors than I expected. What changed your approach?

2d ago

Why does nobody warn you about drywall dust getting into everything

Dude the HVAC thing is a total rookie mistake but we all make it once. I did the same thing in my old house and found dust in my sock drawer somehow. It's like drywall dust has this built-in radar for finding every crack and crevice in your whole house. I swear it's the same principle as glitter or those tiny styrofoam beads in beanbag chairs they just get everywhere and you'll be finding them for years. You gotta tape off the vents with plastic and painter's tape before you even open a bag of mud.

5d ago

PSA: Picked a dewalt impact over a milwaukee for my daily driver

That butter knife comparison is spot on. Dewalt catches a lot of flack from the Milwaukee crowd but the real test is how many jobs it finishes. The 887 has that smooth trigger that makes a big difference when you're doing lug nuts all day. It just feels more controlled and predictable. People get hung up on specs and brand names instead of actual performance on the job. If a tool works for you day in and day out without breaking down, that's all that matters. The guys swapping batteries because theirs are in the shop aren't getting that same piece of mind.